


the city is on fire tonight

by jemmasimmns (laurellance)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, speculation fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 14:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15535893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurellance/pseuds/jemmasimmns
Summary: In which, following the breaking of the barriers, how a creature of magic by the name of Charlie finds herself dealing with the Legends. It's a long, tedious process that shouldn't be repeated.Alternatively, a season 4 speculation fic.





	the city is on fire tonight

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by the content SDCC released, and somehow that turned into 11k. Enjoy!

When the barriers break, Charlie runs. Runs for the closest time period that opens up, and finds herself in grass. The spot’s a beacon; some twenty years ago someone had opened up a trap here with the raw, uncontrolled matter that was time and died here. The year reads 2012, and that’s when she senses it, the stench of death, clear as day.

Death, as it turns out, hasn't changed from the last time she’s been on earth. 79 AD wasn’t too far behind, was it? The stench that was Pompeii has stayed with her for millennia, winding and bleeding in her memory till all she remembered was ash consummating everything, the screams of humans as they succumbed to lava, and the sheer terror that remained as it continued.

Charlie can’t help but find herself lucky that some magician had destroyed her physical form just days before; apparently plaguing the rich made her _nuisance_ and a _pest_ and she shouldn’t do it, because _god forbid_ creatures made of magic from other dimensions have fun on other planets.

Back to the stench of death. She smells it from miles away; so clear it guides her directly towards this person. Person, because only humans could make everything so loud and bold, brash in life and noisy in death. Animals went out without a bang, and plants went silently. Humans desired to stay, as long as they could, delaying their end and banging their heads against walls because they so desired to _live_ , their finite timelines demanding that they make something worthwhile of their time.

It’s an old woman, tended to by her daughter, granddaughters and great-grandchildren. By far, it’s a group of women, crooning to a sleepless elder whose body had worked  against her for years, tearing at her bones and weakening her muscles and decimating her from within. Her body’s almost gone, still working but so close to failure Charlie feels death taking her, breath by breath.

She’s the first human that Charlie notices that seems to accepts death. There’s no screaming and kicking and praying to the Gods- it was God now, wasn’t it?- to save them, but a calm realization that she would carry her achievements and regrets to her grave, that her ups and her downs were private, until the very end.

That’s when Charlie takes a step back. One of the descendants was wearing one of those cursed items; totems, they're called, but in her folklore, the objects of their damnation. That was the magic that sealed them from earth, from it’s precious and finite time stream, locking them out of the only safety there was in all of time and space. It’s the harnesser of spirits; hardly the most deadly one of them all, but among the deadliest. Second, only to the cursed carrier of death, the one Mallus had used to corrupt and turn and steal souls from.

To all the Gods there were, Charlie never wanted to see another one of those carriers of cursed magic.

So, Charlie waits. She’s a creature of pure magic, an imp from another dimension. Humans needed their bodies to survive, but she could survive in this form. The problem was, people would be searching for this form- and so, Charlie needed to merge with a human host. Something that would allow her to bypass their suspicions and walk right by them without arousing suspicion. 

There were tricks to merging; never someone who was young or strong in spirit, because merging was a voluntary possession. It was the tricky balance between retaining control or allowing the human mind control of its body beyond it’s time, a play by play that more or less came down to this: the most viable hosts were those that were older, wiser, so close to death that they would accept the terms and conditions of living forever under someone else.

It sounds bad, Charlie knows, but humans would search high and low for cures from death, and if that cure came from immortal beings of magic, some of them would take without hesitation. It wasn’t like Charlie cared for ethics either way, not when survival was what mattered.

Nightfall comes easily. Patience comes easily to her, and so she watches as she rests, settling in an upper area of the residual this person was in. Magic fills this area, not in the halls, but from the person. A long time ago, Charlie can’t help but snarl, this person held the homage of spirits and used it, and so the residual of homage of spirits lined her blood vessels, every single one of them.

Alone, the old woman opens her eyes. The old woman seems to _sense_ her, the way she slowly got up and turned to the corner she hid in, eyes directly in her area. She tells Charlie, in a slow and worn voice, “You’ve come a long way, haven’t you?”

Charlie doesn’t respond. The old woman continues.

“My friends broke the barriers of time,” she clears her throat, and Charlie watches as she takes a sip of water, “and I don’t know what the consequences were, but it must have unleashed something.”

If this was bait, Charlie’s not biting. The last time she did it, an amateur magician summoned Giovanni Zatara, destroying her physical body, the malleable one she could shape shift into anything.

The magic for that’s been long lost, one of the first things to be abandoned following the closing off of earth. Hence, why Charlie needs to find a willing host, goddammit.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” the woman tells her, “I promise.”

Charlie does take one look at this woman, not because she believed her, but because there’s a temptation to. Humans had the ability to be just as sincere as they could liars, just as easily backstabbing as they could selling their loved ones out for wealth. They seemed kind enough, but that was the effect of old age. Noble, genuine.

Charlie knows this human can sense her. The way her eyes focused on her essence, her form for the last two millennia, she saw it as clearly as she did her family. She’ll roll the die, gamble with her luck. The woman was dying anyway, and if it didn’t work out, she’d move on. There should be plenty of people in 2012 that were dying.

Charlie chuckles, can’t help it. “All humans say that.” Colder now. “None of them mean it.” Her voice translates to the whistling of wind, nothing out of the ordinary. The grasses perk up, stand a little taller.

“What are you?” The older woman’s voice is hoarse, hardly difficult to understand, but still there.

“I’m a jack of all trades, neither a friend nor an enemy.” Charlie watches the confusion on the old woman’s face, and she’s forgotten how humans could be so entertaining. She can’t help the sigh that befalls her, and thinks to herself, she really _had_ matured in her two millennia of limbo. “I’m an imp.”

“Why are you here?” The old woman’s voice never waivers as she asks, and she sits down still, her body no doubt punishing her for the invincibility of youth.

“I just landed here, on the grass that stinks of an implosion of time.” Not technically an answer, but still something.

The old woman winces. “Rip died there.”

 _Rip Hunter?_ The man was damn near immortal, for all she knew. Defied human death like it was habit and told the tale with a straight face. “Rip Hunter?” She can’t help but scoff, “Only if it was for his team of idiots.”

“It was a sacrifice,” the old woman’s eyes are closed, “to delay Mallus so we could escape.”

That sounded more like it. Still, it shouldn’t surprise Charlie she’s run into one of his recruits. The aching of the joints and attitude seemed fitting. “The man was kind, but he was human.”

“Being human isn’t a bad thing,” the old woman tells her, “it’s never been a bad thing.”

So this is what it was like, talking to an optimist. “I’d suggest saving your energy,” and if her voice comes out with an edge to it, it’s intentional, “the more you talk, the quicker death comes.”

“How can you tell?” The woman asks, having returned her attention towards Charlie.

“I followed the scent of your body decaying.” Charlie tells her, matter of factly, and the old woman winces, but accepts it.

“Do I make it to next year?” Hoarse, tinged with grief. Regret.

“Your body fails you before year end.” It’s clear as day, the way her cells were lagging and failing to replenish as efficient as they used to.

“I’ve lived a good life,” the old woman says with the smallest of quivers in her hand, “and that’s all I can do.”

The subtle movements the old woman tries to disguise were all Charlie needed. Regrets, she figures- they had a tendency to keep anyone up, big and small, personal and impersonal. They were a constant to the human experience, and Charlie, she hasn’t had time for regrets or a conscience.

She’s also immortal, but Charlie’s always been immortal.

Charlie doesn’t reply, just watches her. They do this for a while, an old woman staring into space (really, a creature of magic), and the aforementioned creature of magic picking up signals from her surroundings. There were many things she picks up; the absentminded hum of metal vibrating and it grates her entire being, the noise the metal makes. Nature gets replaced by concrete, which Charlie does know, _thank you Rome_ , and man made demons that spawned to the length of the sky, humans hustling around in artificial structures that killed whatever they touched.

Two millennia, Charlie’s been locked out. Two thousand years later, all these humans had learned from their overlapping, finite time streams was how to raze and burn everything that was holy and natural.

If Charlie was younger, she’d reek havoc, but it would be of no use. Humans, in their pitiful lifelines, never listened.

So, Charlie naps. Anger does her no good; and she needs her strength, if one of Hunter’s damned Bureau or his team of losers decided to visit. Which, the last point, they were sure to at one point. The old woman made a point of telling stories every night, and it feels like one of those confessioning chairs with the old men she had heard one of the younger imps tell her about; after the switch from the Gods to God.

Charlie didn’t understand it then, and she doesn’t understand it now. She rests, and she listens, as the old woman passes down stories night after night, the air in her lungs growing fainter every time she spoke. Her cells grow clammy, lagging, to the point where all the old woman does is rest in the day; in the hours of the light, she rests, surrounded by people who insisted on holding her hand, as though it would delay the rate her body was betraying her mind.

One night, she takes pity on the older woman. Comes to her eye level and wishes her well in her next life. Was that something humans believed? Reincarnation? Nonetheless, she takes the time to wish this human, the only one who wasn’t terrible, peace. 

All while, the stench of death grows even stronger. If, before it was poignant, it multiplies, labored breath on labored breath, never ending. The old woman saves her strength by speaking little, but there is much in those eyes that so desired _living_ that it reminds Charlie of one of the more endearing aspects of humans: their determination.

That determination comes to an end, as all things human did. Her body fails her; the cells within stop working, and the old woman, _Amaya_ , she’s called, panics under the tight control she’s always been under. A single tear slips under her eye lid, and Charlie, if she were inclined, would’ve offered the possession.

She doesn’t. She takes it, sliding in the old woman’s veins, lining her body against a dying one, commanding the dying cells not to regenerate.

The reason being as followed: Hunter’s team of losers had arrived. They, by nature, weren’t the problem. The problem was, the new captain had recruited John Constantine, a student of Giovanni Zatara, and Charlie panics.

Perhaps panic wasn’t the right word; maybe, freeze worked better. It had been so long, even by her standards, since she had come in contact with any human magician, and if her interactions with them before 79 AD were any indication, she needed to hide. She had no upper hand here, she had no advantage, nor did she have any disguise. She creates one, and in the process, damns the elderly dame who had so graciously treated her with kindness.

 _I’m sorry_ , she tells the body, and it’s a genuine regret, and she feels her body merge with her host; as the limited carrier of the spirits fought so defiantly against her melding, as it blended with her, silver strands of summoning blending with her gifts of prophecy, luck and long-lasting memory. The latter, gifts from playing cards with overconfident time demons who gambled away their talents as they were nothing.

The host rages, but there’s nothing neither of them can do. The process is automatic, an incubation ceremony that happened within the blink of an eye, in the turn of a second. In the open casket funeral, Hunter’s team of losers, _or in her hosts’s term, her teammates_ , visits, treating the body with reverence. John Constantine has opted to stay in the back, waiting for them to finish. _Him_ being closer than expected rages Charlie, but she can’t do much, not without exposing herself.

The body is buried in a locket made of wood, head covered by a larger piece of stone that used to line Pompeii. They’ve downgraded human burials, Charlie notes, no longer decorating them with marble halls or pyramids quenched with the poisonous blood of venom. Shame, the marble halls were much more enjoyable to carve on than a piece of granite. Now, the humans would call them carvings of great value; Charlie laughs, all they were was magical creatures writing inside jokes, meanings lost in the passing of time.

Three nights pass before Charlie deigns it safe to leave. The old woman’s been buried with a metal device; a gift from the male her host has such fond dreams about, the dreams that involved ripping all his clothes off and admiring his bodice and making him whimper and pleasuring her in the process, a device the host tells her in annoyance, was a time courier.

Her host doesn’t enjoy her presence, and for that Charlie can only apologize. Their memories have melded together, two entirely foreign histories clashing and blending in unexpected harmony. _Amaya_ , as she was called, finds her possession disrespectful.

 _Let me die_ , she had said, _let me go in peace_.

 _I can’t_ , Charlie had pushed back, _not without leaving this body_.

 _So_ , Amaya suggests, _leave my body in peace_.

It’s a useless effort. Amaya’s seen the memories of the melding process, how a human possession was ultimately unable to be released without harm. Human bodies were touchy and they resisted change; so much so, it was a death wish before to bond to a human body.

It’s a survivors move, what Charlie did. There’s an idiom from her time gone that she finds quite astute: _never trust a survivor until you find out what they did to stay alive_. There’s a tinge of apologetics as she conveys this to the old woman, and she’s as much stuck as Amaya Jiwe is.

The thing was, and Charlie’s known this for as long as she existed in one form or another, all she’s known is survival. _To exist_ , she had been taught, _is a blessing_. _Fight for it, bleed for it, kill for it. You will never get your existence back_.

She could have survived without bonding with this woman, yes, but she knows, without a doubt, John Constantine would have banished her without blinking. And all her existence _, all she had done to preserve it,_ would have been in vain.

It would have been wasted, when it came down to it.

So, Charlie sends her apologies to Amaya Jiwe and she carries on, heeding the old woman’s wisdom while trying to avoid the morals the old woman had lived by.

The first order of business: somewhere to shift. Her magic, long uniform with the body she was currently residing in, allowed her to reverse the human aging that had occurred. Human bodies were static, fickle. They could not permit change that had not previously happened, but they could change to a form they had maintained in their life span. 

Oh, Charlie had been pleased Amaya Jiwe took such care of herself in her youth. She had cared for it with such loving, so much better than the rich folk of Rome; then the emperors, by so much. She admires the body in its prime, long, athletic and thin legs, hair, a very lovely texture and length, the upper bodice for what it appeared to be. She uses the memories of Amaya Jiwe to pick clothing, a pair of pants and boots that snagged Charlie’s attention, shirts and jackets that looked lovely. She’s pleasantly surprised that within the last two millennia, women were allowed not to wear skirts. They had been devilishly annoying.

The blessings of time couriers, Charlie learns, were that they were easy to use. On the risk of her losing hers, she makes the venture to where a quadrant of Agents were loading a shipment to go. They’re all in boxes, fitting with the time period, she imagines, ordinary and plain. She takes a box and finds a close replacement, walking away with a box of time couriers, things she hides in her inner pockets, using magic to seal them within the seams of her clothing so that only she would be able to access them if she had one taken from her.

The days before the beeping metal death switches prove to be her favorite. Technology moves at a quicker pace than she ever dreams of anticipating, and it confuses her to no end, how to move one button and turn a talking, dancing, machine to life, but move another and it was another routine.

She ends up throwing the machine in the trashcan, watching as two young children took it away, giggling and whispering in excitement. Her human host does end up pleased, watching as the two boys who looked like her carried it back to their family. She lounges in the room she’s in; the year is 1969 and this continent, called America apparently, is within what she perceives to be unrest, mourning.

The drinks are good, she thinks, as she sits in an bar, in a back corner with a stolen bottle of whiskey that rests untouched. Her human host never drank much, to Charlie’s annoyance, so she grumbles and takes a sip of water instead. The contraption that was soda (or was it pop?) rings down her host’s throat, and she likes it as little as _Amaya_ does.

The host’s name was Amaya.

That’s when she spots them, matter of the timeline a glowing headlight. Time travel, by nature, gave humans more flexibility within their bodies; it hangs off them, loosening their limitations and blessing them with higher endurance. It shows in their mannerisms, a conglomeration of experience that translated to never fitting in one period or the next, flitting and so clearly out of their element.

There are five of them. Hunter’s second coming, the blonde, and the Armenian. She supposes the name has changed, the way _Amaya_ corrects her, to tell her Zari was of Iranian descent. Both the Armenian and the Captain walk to confidently for this time period; their eyes far too weary and gait far too bold. The Captain has no cares, scowling and talking as if this were natural, and the Armenian sits on the sidelines, silent, but always watching.

John Constantine’s the third she sees, but he doesn’t spot her. It doesn’t stop her from casting a concealment charm; not from him, but from the humans, who _Amaya_ loved so much more than she did the bloody cursed magician. Maybe Charlie could taunt him about his mistakes. She, after all, did need to thank him for banishing Giovanni Zatara to hell for all eternity.

The scientist with optimism bounces in, a fairy around trolls. Nothing special with him, but fairly easy to manipulate. Nothing of interest to Charlie; merely the sidekick.

The last person, of course, was the historian. The man of Steel that her host, _Amaya_ , desired nothing more than to hug and kiss and pin against the wall to remove his clothing piece by piece and enjoy the pleasure on his face (Charlie doesn’t understand this; women screamed when in intercourse, and they sobbed, but never from pleasure. Why would this man enjoy having his clothing removed, meticulously, piece by piece? Why did he enjoy being on the bottom of this woman, time after time? Surely, he wasn’t a masochist.). Charlie shutters to think of what else she knows about the man, but needless to say, if she did decide to bed him, she could let _Amaya_ do all the work.

The name of her host is hardly foreign on her tongue, but humans prized their individuality, and while Charlie was used to grouping them all for millennia as fools, she could hardly continue that particular habit while making peace with _Amaya_.

It must be a long time for the humans, because when they do spot her, she’s already cast a number of protections for when she’d run. She’s already slipped her courier into her pocket, impish magic far too delicate for any magician to break open, and made it so that when she did run, they couldn’t find her, nor track her, nor discover her whereabouts.

Memories were the easiest thing in the planets to manipulate, and humans, they held onto their memories like prized possessions. They would accept their blind spots, and Charlie would wiggle her way out through those blind spots.

Steel catches her. _Nathaniel_ , he’s called, but did his name really matter? Her host’s vocal in disagreement (if Charlie hadn’t been inhabiting her hosts’ body, she’d have more to say), and Charlie concedes on that. Apologizes, makes peace as he comes over, eyes slightly widened, as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. John Constantine follows.

In a voice choked with emotion, he asks one word. “Amaya?” Her host longs to greet him, the numerous emotions in that one word moving her in ways Charlie still didn’t understand.

John Constantine glowers. In her tongue, he garbles _leave this body_ , the fluidity and the beauty of her mother language lost to his humanness. Every word is punctured with a pause, and Constantine so clearly tries to maintain a facade of control.

Those were exceptionally fun to break, facades of control. Charlie smiles, one of slight annoyance, because accents only mangled her native language even more. “Constantine,” she greets, “you didn’t say hello.”

The last sentence spoken with eloquence, coldness, and the team behind Giovanni Zatara’s former apprentice stands still, faces in various stages of shock and displeasure.

Constantine doesn’t say anything, but glares, and as he opens his mouth to reply- “How’s Giovanni? Does he know you’re the reason he’s stuck in hell for all eternity?”

Constantine doesn’t say anything yet, again, in a sort of shock. The blonde Captain looks at him in questioning, and Charlie seriously wonders, how was it this Captain fell for every man with an Anglo-Saxon accent? Not that Constantine, the damned magician, minded.

She scoffs, taking a sip of her water. “Not that it matters. I bet he still doesn’t know his daughter loves you.” _And she always will_ , Charlie wants to add. Maybe she’ll mention it to make him hurt some other time.

This, John Constantine reacts to. Immediately. The anger of his face is imminent and she watches as his eyes flash dangerously, his tongue never quite tripping over words the way the companion he had followed did. The one _Amaya_ wanted to have her fun with. “Leave Zee out of this,” and to Hunter’s team of losers, he tells, “This,” he says darkly, “is Charlie. She’s one of the bloody fugitives you lot let in.”

The Captain senses a threat when she sees one, and yet, the conflicting look in her eye as she examines her former teammate is obvious to everyone but her. “She looks like Amaya.” Slower, incredulously. “ _Why does she look like Amaya_?”

Charlie has the sense not to change facial expressions. “I landed in Zambesi, 2012. Rip Hunter’s sacrifice caused it to become a temporal gateway. I followed the stench of death to find an old woman by the name of Amaya Jiwe.” Her last point is self explanatory, to her at least. “Rules of possession, Lance.”

The Captain flinches. She doesn’t even attempt to hide it. She does however, refuse for emotion to choke her voice yet still cloud her every judgement. “What the _hell_ does that mean?”

“You’re the Captain, aren’t you?” Charlie asks, “You should know what it means.” Her predecessor would, but maybe Charlie’s asking too much, expecting humans to be somewhat knowledgeable, hell, even the barest of the barest, competent.

The Captain jabs Constantine. It’s the most blatant turn of authority she’s seen, and the Romans, who she always viewed as bubbling idiots, looked brilliant in comparison. 

“Giovanni destroyed your previous form, did he?” Constantine has the nerve to look at her, rage replaced by the muddling look that was his form of treachery, “Perhaps I’ll follow his example.”

“You wouldn’t,” Charlie says, clear as night and unfathomable as day. “Your friends wouldn’t forgive you.”

John Constantine can’t manage a single reply. He knew as well as she did, that should he exorcise her from this body, it would decimate Amaya Jiwe for all purposes, not just in body but in other forms as well. If possession was a life sentence, then the damnation that followed was a death sentence. And yet, Hunter had taken eternal damnation to save the lives of those standing in front of her, sacrificing his only hope for a peace after his end on the belief that his protege and her team of misguided nonentities could fend off a garden gnome variety time demon. 

All the while, the humans only grew more and more confused. _Amaya_ bleeds for them, so strongly that Charlie can only offer a good deed to appease the dreaded kindness running through her, and so Charlie fends off her innate instincts of running.

She even prays to Rao, of all Gods, the one she enjoys least, that what she was doing wouldn’t come back to haunt her.

(She forgets, that in the two millennia that had passed, Rao had faded into nothing, his two major sources of worship, Krypton and Daxam, both laid to waste, ravaged and decimated in every earth, in every prophecy, in every future. Oh well.

In all fairness, both planets had been full of bastards, the nerve grating kind that deserved what they got.)

“I’ll help you,” and she watches as John Constantine looks as though he wants to wring her neck, “but not here. On the metal death trap.”

“The waverider,” the man with steel infused in his essence supplies, the one who hasn’t been able to take his eyes off her since the minute this fiasco had started. “Right?”

She scowls, and the response is enough for the humans. The one _Amaya_ so dearly loves trails her, his one arm within reach so she couldn’t escape. He doesn’t hold tight, the way the Captain latches herself onto Charlie’s other arm, with clear force.

Charlie’s just glad the Armenian and John Constantine stay in the back. The two of them were a cursed combination, channel of wind and human tongue far too dangerous apart, and even deadlier together.

The metal death trap comes within distance, unnatural and terrible in all meanings. Flat, edgy, still; the grass around it begs to be released and the animals who had been displaced by it yearn for the use of the grass, to survive. It’s the epitome of humans: intrusive and ultimately, the worst of humanity.

Not that Charlie cared much for humanity. That was _Amaya_.

They take her to a room of metal. The Captain hands her off to _Nathaniel_ , who gives her a wider berth to enter, but stays within reach. He lingers, as she’s made to enter a container of glass, bench against the wall, centered. He says nothing, just looks at her, indescribable look on his face as he delays his Captain with a slight excuse. Forlorn, melancholy, and all Charlie can feel is _Amaya_ wishing there was something _Amaya_ could have done to comfort him in that moment.

Humans have to be called by their names, and it was so terribly unfortunate. 

The Captain, the one who has doe eyes when she flinches, enters. In human time, it must’ve been longer: she’s changed clothes, changed her hair. All the stylings of the wives of Roman emperors, minus the long suffering knowledge that there was nothing they could do about their cheating husbands. It’s the blink of a second for Charlie. 

“Constantine told me what the rules of possession were,” the Captain slouches slightly on the bench, staring into ghosts, “so what was it you wanted to say?” The venom is still in her voice, cold fury in her eyes a constant.

“A warning,” Charlie starts, thinking to herself, _if you could believe it_. Her every instinct begging her to run, but _Amaya_ holding firm in her support of the dumbest decision she had ever done.

The Captain, _Sara_ , her name is, echoes her disbelief. “A warning?”

Charlie can feel the demon that had broken the barrier, the one she had always chosen to believe wasn’t real, for fear of his power, on her, death forever tainting the artificial soul she bore, largely to waste. “I won’t speak the name of the demon that knew your name,” she says with a sort of pride, but largely fear, superstition. “But he will only be your Earth’s first.”

The Captain, Lady Death, the Fair Dame of Death, looks dumbfounded. Charlie only hopes it’s because her skills of processing are limited; Hunter’s team of troglodytes remained the only protectors against the maleficent creatures of magic. “You’re kidding.”

It must be a long time for a human, the two of them looking at each other in silence, before the carrier of death speaks again. “ _Please_ tell me you’re kidding me.”

“The demon you carry with you,” _the one with the unspeakable name_ , Charlie shudders, “is hardly the worst time demon I’ve encountered. By contrast,” and Charlie’s not sure how to phrase this in the new language humans used, English far more difficult than Latin, clumsy and unforgiving on her tongue, “he was tame.”

“I suppose it would be called the play of childs.” That was what _Amaya_ had described it as.

The human who bonded with death speaks. “Childs’ play?” She frowns. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I imagine John Constantine made it sound like an imp was the largest problem your team would encounter.” She rakes the human’s face for a reaction, and finds herself proven correct. “We’re harmless, in the grand scheme of everything.”

The human doesn’t know how to react, and Charlie’s not sure if it originated from total ignorance or blocking out everything her Captain could possibly have taught her about magic. Charlie sighs, and she treats the Captain as a child, who has yet to grow to meet the challenges she would eventually face. “Did the only good human tell you about the time before the creation of the protectionists he would destroy?” The human blinks, not understanding. “He went by the name Rip Hunter.”

The human frowns in thought. “The time masters?”

Did this human know _anything_? How was it that her Captain had chosen a fate that made eternal damnation seem innocent, solely for the faith that his proteges would save the world, just for the woman he would die for to know nothing? How was it that the only human that didn’t despise the creatures of magic, the only human who had ever granted solace, granted any sort of kindness to those that weren’t of human origin, would pass on such a disappointing heir? 

The human would be torn apart for all millennia; not truly dead and never to be resurrected. His being would be scattered to all the realms, pits and pieces of him in a trapped state, torn apart and still guided by a primal urge to protect what he had ensured as his legacy, the mistress he had served breaking the former Captain.

Charlie can’t help but scowl. “When you were a child, did you ever hear stories of mythical acts that couldn’t have been real? A horse with a horn, perhaps?” The human nods. “They were the recollections of what humans witnessed, before the closing off of the worlds. They became stories afterwards, if my observation is correct, fabled myths better told as gags.”

“Every story you heard, every joke that was passed down through the millennia, _they were all real_.” The human finally nods in something that could be understanding, and by the Order of the Gods, Charlie wishes for this Captain to have been more studious. “And, you let them all out.”

The Captain longs to speak. Charlie pushes on. “Have you heard of the-” the human wouldn’t understand the Greek, which, _why was it called Ancient Greek now?_ , or the Latin, “you would call her Pandora.”

Charlie doesn’t want this human to derail her. “Nod if you understand.” The human flashes annoyance, but complies.

The human nods.

“The good son of Iapetos,” Prometheus in name, “stole from the King. The aegis-bearer, in revenge, sent her to the swift messenger of the gods, the brother of the good son of lapetos.” The brother being called Epimetheus, the King being called Zeus. “The messenger had a pithos (a clay container, Charlie clarifies for _Amaya_ ), one that held all the evils of man. Greed, Anger, Lust, Jealousy, Spite. Revenge, Pride, every human emotion you use to justify cheating, robbing, killing.”

Charlie watches as the human doesn’t understand a single word of what she just said. It warms her heart, the way the human pretends to know, nodding along, when in reality, Charlie could have made things easier by calling them the names assigned to them much later. 

She’s still got things to say. “The woman closed the container on Elpis. Hope, as the later retellings would call her.” Elpis was a better name, if you asked Charlie, but these were humans. It was better to come in with no expectations and still end up disappointed.

A pause, as the human starts to understand what Charlie was telling her. The logic of her kind was a riddlesome one, laced with critical thinking and the pertinent baseline that there were many ways to express a sentiment, and that was something humans failed to understand beyond the most obvious kind of outburst.

The Captain winces. “I’m Pandora.” She tilts her head back, leaning it ever so slightly, eyes closed.

So this human _did_ get it.

The human does this for a second of a second, before continuing. “I threw out everything that belonged to Rip.”

“If it included his recollections on non-humans,” Charlie’s annoyance flares, “you made a _huge_ mistake.”

The Captain herself sighs. A long one, but no verbal reply.

“Well?” Charlie questions, ignoring the panic that runs through her. It’s involuntary, a _human_ response. All that was holy and all that mattered depended on this captain having this knowledge and having this foresight, having this wisdom.

If Hunter’s second coming wasn’t prepared, she’d have to be soon. Very soon, if she's correct, and she’s rarely, if not never, wrong.

She’s annoyed as tells the Captain. “ _Go find those recollections_.” 

The tone comes out much harsher than expected.

And so, the woman scurries out of there as though she had John Constantine breathing down her neck in terms of urgency.

Charlie’s alone now. She stretches, turning to face the recording device she loathed, watching her every move. Someone would come in, sooner or later, and so Charlie recalculates. No plan except this one was impulsive; every plan was run through and every possible change of winds and change of hearts was accounted for by the time she was finished smoothening all the rough edges.

Her plan? Done. Completed. The total garbage, trash can of a plan had reached it’s natural ending, and for which, Charlie was exceedingly happy. _Amaya_ should be happy, this interaction with her teammates plenty to last ten millennia, at the very least. It’s enough for Charlie, by any means, because this team was filled with disasters of human beings (this phrase she thanks _Amaya_ for) who know nothing of what they would be faced with.

This was why she never ran with her instinct, not without evaluating it from start to finish. Situations like this, where she had no clear exit and no set of logistics she could refer to when planning her next move. And, if there was anything she despised, it was improvising.

It leaves the question of escape, when it came down to it. She could escape with her time courier, in theory, but she was never without supervision. The metal center that watched her would make sure of it. John Constantine could easily track her in this state, in this form, at this time, and so she would have to wait it out. She could break their tin can open, but that would decimate her human host and the beautiful body she was currently in, the one she needs to survive, and so she can’t run with her current plan of escape.

She has no allies on this ship, no one who would spare her a kind glance or a sympathetic word of support. No friends who would give her favors, no reluctant non-enemies who didn’t want to mount her hand on their walls in glory. No one who owed her a favor, or lost a round of cards to her to get lenience from. _Amaya_ had friends, family, but those bridges were burned upon the old woman’s death, never to be restored. Dying had that effect, as unfortunate as that was.

Dying was also a very human course of action, and Charlie disliked the finite lives mortals led far more than she did even entertaining the possibility of even pretending to lose her immortality.

Charlie plans instead where she would go. Anything before the great plague of rats was preferred, anything after was too damn ugly to be considered. Rome loses its appeal after two millennia, and Greece she had already had enough fun in. The empire that came after Rome, perhaps. She’s heard wind of it—it was called the Byzantine Empire, when the switch from Gods to God was official and where the kings praised, for all to see, the hypocrisy that was believing the moral clause of just one marriage while continually enjoying the company that were men and women they weren’t supposed to have enjoyable sexual relations with.

The hypocrisy was what made it her lurking ground; watching the rulers in robes pretend to be holy and reveal their lack of integrity only hours later. A Emperor wouldn’t be an Emperor if it wasn’t without clothes. The Byzantine Empire it was, she decides; and so Charlie waits.

The scientist wouldn’t visit, nor would the Armenian. John Constantine would be too busy ringing up demons he had previously enjoyed relationships with and researching humane (oh how Charlie hated that word) methods of reversing the permanent process of possession. The Captain wouldn’t return, for which Charlie is grateful.

The only person that remains now is the historian. He would come back, this much Charlie understands, because he had loved her human host, _Amaya_ , so tenderly and so dearly that he would believe the stars and the moon were hung only so they could illuminate the majestic masterpiece that was Amaya Jiwe. A romantic sap in a man, _a man_ , something that _was_ new.

Charlie doesn’t blame the human, not for that. Amaya Jiwe was by all accords, one of the most impressive humans she had stumbled across. Kind, generous, genuinely benevolent — all things humans lacked in spades, found in one human soul that made Charlie, for once, doubt her steadfast belief that all humans knew was to raze and destroy and treat with carelessness, without any caution whatsoever.

There are other earths, where the two of them would spend their lifetimes together, with only happiness and joy and laughter, but this would not be one of those earths. This earth was marked by bittersweetness, and Charlie really wishes that the possession process hadn’t been created to be so through, because _Amaya_ particularly enjoyed her gift of prophecy, to use in cases of discovering what would happen to those she cared about. 

The remaining human comes eventually, in the same clothes as before and eyes that looked as though they were tainted with blood on the edges. Walks in without grace, and with the ease and comfort that came from confidence, sits down to look at her wordlessly.

It’s not a good conversation starter, the way the man of steel seemed to know exactly what he was doing and to be completely lost at the same time. Precious and heart tearing were what _Amaya_ used for her description, and if it were up to Charlie, this is what she would now use as the essence of what humans were, the good, the bad, the horrible all combined in one emotional wreck of a man staring at an imp in the body of the woman he called the forever love of his life.

It doesn’t help that if _Amaya_ wasn’t already vocal before, she’s tenfold more vocal now. She’s yearned for this man, _Nathaniel_ , a long time, her memories worn in the gentle caressing she would treat them with, replaying every moment with refreshingly vivid recollections, dreaming of the man more than she did her memories. She longs for him, in all aspects, and if Charlie were human, she would have started throwing up and refused to stop. 

Anyone would, the way the two of them so clearly sought the other out whenever they could.

Charlie waits for the man to speak. He wants to, from time to time, opening his mouth ever so slightly before closing it, not sure of what there was he could say. It takes _Nathaniel_ , as her host insists Charlie call him, in human increments of measure what must be one transformation to another, for him finally to greet her.

“I couldn’t sleep,” the man tells her, in what must be his reason for _why_ he was here. 

Charlie doesn’t respond, just blinks and waits for him to continue. The tactic worked with _Amaya_ , it would work with her mate as well. 

He looks uncertain as he speaks. “Gideon won’t be online for a few hours and Sara’s in the Captains’ office drinking.”

Charlie doesn’t do anything. She’s heard that Gideon was their, what was it, mechanical servant? Charlie doesn’t understand the radiating beeping boxes the humans use to communicate with; it’s such an odd occurrence and for the life of her, as long as she has lived, she cannot understand why these humans especially were so dependent on things that could easily break.

Charlie imagines the historian is being friendly. The one, who had once been borne with a death by bleeding, then infused with steel that coursed through his blood to grant him invulnerability against the mechanical weapons of war humans preferred, always. His ulterior motive was likely to discuss _Amaya_ , and Charlie all too well sees the flashes of pain that run through him in his every motion.

It comes. The man of steel prepares himself, it seems, by granting himself rest. He slouches. “You look like her.” Matter of fact tone. He still can’t take his eyes off her, Charlie, the body of the host, _Amaya_ , whatever. Her, of course, presumably referring to _Amaya_.

The men Charlie remember from 79 AD were different. Bolder, larger, careless. Brutish pigs, demons within humans. She shutters to revisit more; and as far as she was concerned, it was the case for all those of the male gender. She certainly hadn’t been proven wrong. She can hardly remember when they cared to recall the name of their lover for the night (and there were _plenty_ ), much less found the name of the one woman they cared for to be painful to recall. 

It certainly doesn’t help that _Amaya_ has made quite the ruckus. The delicate balance she and her host had struck had been followed, to the degree neither being in the same body would take attempts to sabotage the other or work to go against the instincts and habits and plans of the other, so compromises were made. They were made in frustration and silent screams long concealed, in repressing insults and jabs so easily made and ignored. One eye open, one eye closed.

 _Amaya_ wishes to speak to the man. She wishes to talk to him, to reason with him, if only to hear his voice directed towards her. She’s longed for this man, in _so many_ ways, it only seems natural that she would seize the opportunity to turn one such fantasy into something real.

Charlie relents.

It’s a terrible decision.

Charlie has to respond, but to what? There was hardly anything to respond to.

“I imagine,” she notes with amusement, “your Captain doesn’t know you’re here. Growing tired of the short leash she keeps you on?”

Bait, of the clearest kind.

The human bites, looking suddenly more energized than when he had entered. He springs forward, eyes animated and in all senses, _ready_.

By the Order of the Gods, Charlie was already regretting this. 

The historian is sheepish as he admits. “I wanted to see you,” looking at his hands and not her, “but Sara already said she had to give us permission if we wanted to visit.”

“No doubt John Constantine was by her side,” Charlie snarks, the bitterness seeping into her pronunciation of his name. Anyone human who learned the magical arts to weaponize them against the creatures of magic deserved her enmity, as far as she was concerned.

He does look at her now, slight facial moments a dead giveaway. “He was.” The human pulls out a perfume vial, a rectangular shape with a small opening. “He was showing it to Sara, said that it could be used to weaken you. He called it the oldest magic to exist.”

These humans were totally and completely in the dark, it seemed. Charlie can _feel_ it from here, pure, unadulterated magic, powerful enough to elevate any minor creature of magic to the realm of time demons with just a whiff. It filters from the minuscule distance between them, and Charlie has never wanted anything more than she has right now.

“It’s the strongest form of magic to exist—” she explains. “Long before humans came to existence, it was one of the most coveted prizes any creature of magic could land their hands on. It made them invincible,” _more or less_ , but that wasn’t the point. “It’s very rare to find in small amounts,” she makes the switch to Latin now, because her tongue has never felt so heavy as it did speaking the cursed language that was English. “Extremely sought after.”

The human doesn’t blink, understanding Latin as well as English. In grammatically incorrect Latin, much like how the young children of farmers would speak, he tells. “Constantine wanted to use it on you in the morning.”

 _Of course_. Her continual raging against magicians has proven to be one of the most beneficial lessons she has learned, and it has always helped her. “You wanted to save me,” she can’t help but drawl, softer now, and she shakes her head. In confusion, in questioning, in that she won’t reevaluate everything she has learned in the time she has spent in existence. “You are a very odd human.”

“You deserved a second chance,” the human explains, eyes tender as he watches her. “I know you aren’t Amaya,” the aforementioned _Amaya_ has nothing but pride for him now, “but I still wanted to help.”

She’s amused now. He speaks English to her, and she replies in Latin. The human understands it, for which Charlie can’t help but find herself pleased, and here he is, _here a human male is_ , explaining to her what kindness and decency is. 

He would have been beheaded already in Rome, if his innards weren’t already being trodden by horses and the poor alike.

“It doesn’t hurt that I look like her, does it?” Charlie reads his face to find the man with steel infused in his body an open book. She’s throwing this in his face, just to see his reaction.

“It makes it worse,” Charlie detects a hint of anger, “knowing it’s not Amaya looking back at me.” He attempts to close himself off, clamming up for fear he would say more.

“If it helps, _she_ misses you.” She throws him a bone out of pity, and because she wants the vial. She’d play nice and she’d never have to see the man ever again. “Amaya.”

The hope arises on his face, bright and uninvited. “She misses me?” Soft, vulnerable, _breakable_.

“She wants you beneath her, clothes removed and begging for more, begging for,” Charlie pauses, “pleasure.”

There’s a second one _Amaya_ pushes to her, the first one embarrassing her host to no end.“She’d celebrate your birthday, every year, by playing that music she found distasteful. That pretzel man with the smooth, crooning voice. Those circular breads that were called dough nuts.”

At the first one, the man is slow to react. A red blush overtakes his cheeks and he can manage is an “ _Oh_.” Charlie supposes all things related to sexual intercourse were meant to be private matters now; clearly, 79 AD had long passed, and two millennia had caused humans to develop contradictory messages when it came to what was seen as acceptable and what wasn’t. She would continue to use this to her advantage.

At the second, he finds himself laughing, a small sound that was slow but sure. A warm smile resides on his face. “Elvis and doughnuts,” and he seems to be staring into her soul. Clearly, whatever those things were (human matters were of no interest to her, not beyond how she could manipulate them to achieve whatever it was her short term goal was) had a deeper meaning beyond two arbitrary objects that had no correlation to the other. “Did she mention Amazing Grace?”

“Anything that follows the worship of a singular God is of no interest to me,” and not much for _Amaya_ either, Charlie’s pleased to report. The historian didn’t believe much either, so the asking was rather absurd.

The man of steel seems pleased. Grateful, thankful. “Thank you for that,” and his eyes seem to be the slightest bit wet. He clears his throat, a very human tactic to avoid personal opinions. “Do you have somewhere to go?”

The plans Charlie had lain to use were starting to come to fruition. Bait the human and watch him bite, overeager, while in the process, laying the budding seeds of an ally that would help her when the time came. Throw out scraps and watch the human process them, then watch as he would be more inclined to beg for more. Layer such rewards, bit by bit, and create a thirst for knowledge, an urge that would turn his instincts to moves and actions that would favor her, and not that team he was loyal to.

The location listed strikes pain to both of them. “When Hunter’s sacrifice was.” The importance was as followed: since the implosion of time, it was a magnet, a portal of random. The largest such gateway to the human world, a portal of infinite possibilities to create chaos and flee. It was a deadly, dangerous path to travel to the world of humans, but the easiest to find, and by definition, quite possibly one of the most dangerous. Charlie had been lucky, landing in 2012. Charlie had been _extremely_ lucky, finding a human so close to death, so easily.

The human is shy to admit whatever it was he was planning on saying. He seems to dread this place, and, in Charlie’s observations, hesitates in his planning. It was a place of personal importance it seemed, where he had said goodbye to _Amaya_ , once and for all, and so the avoidance of it was natural. He releases a deep breath. “Zambesi, 1992.” He bottles up his courage and wills it to hold him together. “Right?”

Only two decades apart; so closely related. Not even the blink of a eye compared in relations of distance within the human time stream. The chances of finding herself in such a time, within the same location were truly uncanny. Luck is the only possibility that Charlie entertains, but luck was often so synonymous with the meddling of Gods and the back door sabotage of creatures far elevated than she was. She was too jaded to believe it was luck, for her to find the old woman, it had to be something else.

The only magic that speaks to her, that rung of such magic, had to be cursed fabric of time she had absorbed, found lined in _Amaya_ , a true constant that she had turned into something she could use. If she so wished, she could understand the wild life, but couldn’t summon their essence, not without a proper medium to conduct the power and energy that was needed to muster such determination.

She holds his ever present gaze. “Yes.” The hurt that runs unconcealed comes from both _Nathaniel_ and _Amaya_ (Charlie does remind _Amaya_ to get a grip of herself, she was a grown woman with great grandchildren, by the Order of the Gods) annoys her, so much so she almost considers just using the courier she has tucked in her jacket to escape this very instant.

She doesn’t. The historian that went by the name _Nathaniel_ had, in the delightful carelessness of his nature, stolen a bottle of pure magic, for the sentiment of his forever love, and held it with him, away from the cursed grasp of a human magician. So close, yet so far; and if there was anything Charlie wanted, it was the bottle of magic he had in his hand. 

Taking it by force wouldn’t do. She needed to breed allies, and he would be her first. Humans hardly made good allies, only considering what they could benefit from, but this human had such affection for her host, it was clear that he hung off her every word, if only just because he could see his old lover once more.

 _Such a weak, weak link_ , Charlie thinks, but she was a fool if she didn’t use it to her advantage.

The human stands to open the door, the skin of his body turning from a peach pink to a reflective silver, and Charlie grudgingly agrees with _Amaya_ , the historian with steel infused in his being did have attractive features to admire. The upper body and the arms, for instance. A hand goes in to wench the door open, and from there it slides, no dents to be seen, no physical evidence remaining to be used to incriminate either of them. 

This doesn’t stop her from cleansing the area, wiping away the filth and grime that had accumulated, magic swirling in and around her and _Amaya’s_ former lover.

 _Nathaniel_ , the historian, pulls out a time courier. He’s already input the destination and the door had opened up, tan grasses swaying in the wind, an endless stretch of beautiful, majestic wildlife waiting to be seen. She walks through, enjoying the knee high grass tickling her knee and she admires the wide open sky, devoid of structures that extended like unholy titans, taller and taller, more and more frequent, sky demons ruining all that was proper. The historian squirms among the grass, clearly more comfortable on tin cans and metal monsters.

What a terrible sensation it must have been, Charlie can only wonder, to prefer the destruction and the decay over all that was beautiful.

“What was that?” the historian asks, the two of them among the oscillating grasses and the skyline of daylight dancing on their respective skins. “What you said.”

“A cleansing spell,” she tells him, and she swears to all the Gods who she liked cursing to, she really did wish there were better ways to build allies. The promise of the magic bottle resting in his pocket was incentive enough, but she could do without the discussions of _human feelings_ , fickle and terrible things that she had to care about.

Self explanatory, and the man looks at her. Peers at her, outside the forced light of the metal horror with the brainless human and the darkness, that which she had found infinitely more comfortable. His face softens, ever so slightly.

Charlie blames _Amaya_ for this.

“Come here,” she summons, urging him to be closer than he already was. She can feel the years of the land, the history and the people blending and meshing in union, in memories she can catch mere glances of, funerals and births, marriages and murders, pain and joy in what must have been the full circle of what humans only desired to experience.

She had already established a link she could use, but for now, she will let _Amaya_ guide her. The old woman would give her less grief for when they would make their way to the Byzantine Empire and plague their kings of hypocrisy with taunts and hurt, with hurling and the mistreatment of the only legitimate children, with the chaos she would leave in her wake.

“I played cards with time demons,” she tells the human man, _Nathaniel_ , as they stand only within the distance of a palm. Seven and two fifths centimeters, she clarifies for _Amaya_. “They were overly confident,” she listens as he breathes, silent and still obnoxiously human, “and they would often lose their most precious gifts.”

“Such as,” she makes the move to breathe closer to his ear, and the human reacts accordingly, “the gift of prophecy, ranging on all earths.” She asks a simple question, to scare his bones and shake them, because she will not reveal information without an ulterior motive. “You do know what prophecy is, don’t you?”

The human can only nod.

“Time demons are also tricky,” _just like all creatures of magic_ , “and so my gift of prophecy came with a catch. It can only work in cases of close contact.” The last condition had made it unusable. Damn demons.

It works with humans, however, because this human in particular relinquished dominance for _Amaya_. This human had been fond of her, and following the beautiful wonderance that was _deja vu_ , she could use it to show him something that would make him latch on.

The historian expects a kiss. He waits for it, body language unsteady, and Charlie can’t bother with human kissing. It’s an unholy act she’s witnessed for fun with friends, laughing in mockery at how terrible these humans were, and how they were comedic gold.

She hugs him, following _Amaya’s_ memory of such dealings. It comes easily, and _Amaya_ enjoys it, feeling his body heat against hers. Theirs.

She knows what she shows him. The same replaying of already break proof memories begins the montage of visions he sees: the two of them in that human house of theirs, photographs of her host and the man she loved scattering the room, the one rest bed used by both of them. The two of them, in parks and restaurants and museums, laughing and talking like normal humans (whatever that meant) and not as time travellers, the two of them on the bed, moaning and begging in pleasure, in morning glances spent gazing lovingly into the eyes of the other.

In that circus, _come back to me_. The pretzel man that sang, and the two of them, him showing her in all excitement, and her reserving worries he would never understand, not unless he knew her skin and her history. In the house of the singular God, slow dancing for all to see, no worries present. In how the first time she tells him _I love you_ , he doesn’t hear, but it’s better that way, because her worries of not finding someone have been long gone, replaced by the inevitable knowledge she would leave him, once and for all.

Their adventures, in collision courses of sexual intercourse and the moments that mattered; in the comfort they had given each other as friends, long before they were lovers. In the death of his grandfather, her colleague and dear friend, in the sometimes cruel words they would exchange running on emotions they failed to control. In the casual _I love yous_ held so carefully, the one, paramount regret of them not being recorded. In the fights fought together, in the mornings the man would spend holding a red sack (she’s been told they were punching bags) still as the woman kept pounding it, and how the two of them would talk, not as lovers, but as people who cared for the other, deeply.

In their goodbye, the last kisses he would give her. One on the lips, then on the forehead, and the historian would fight so valiantly to hold it in, to resist looking back, and she would watch his every move, a single tear slipping down her cheek. In that he had first suggested her memory be erased, just as it had been last time, only for her to tell him her memories would be the only part of him she was allowed to keep. How, on stormy nights, she would search for him and wish for his safety and his happiness, and hold what he meant to her, in what her team meant to her, and wish she could have just one more moment with all of them.

The montage changes. Charlie shows the historian visions from other earths; of weddings spent at brothels, beaming and glowing in ordinary clothing, in weddings of black and white (clothing, she means) with chairs parted down two sides of an aisle, in screams and grunts of pain that resulted in the creation of new life, innocent infants screaming with new lungs and tears of joy shed, expressions of awe at the creation that was lain in front of them. She finds him in some, and he finds her. They find each other, ultimately, though trials of fire and trials of ice, in hazes of catastrophe and the bullets of war, and once together, they are never apart, never alone. Scenes of a life they would live (but not here) would be painted in photographs of a life spent together, from the days of youth to old age, when their bones creaked and their scars faded into creases of wrinkled skin. In moments of laughter and recollections of their youth and their misadventures, in the jokes they would share with each other, in the forehead kisses that would prelude the befalling of death.

Charlie isn’t without a heart; often, she notes, it’s crueler to listen to her heart than it is her head. Pain, ultimately, is a human phenomenon. It is a curse for creatures of magic, for those who survival was paramount on closing off all sympathy and killing all empathy to cheat, to leave before destruction was onslaught and to without question, _survive_.

The historian stays still for a very long time. Deathly still, but living, breathing. In a shaky motion, he embraces her, and to her ear, he whispers, only to her, “ _Thank you_.” His voice trembles and his actions are nervous as he disentangles himself from her. The bottle of unrefined magic is placed into her jacket pocket with trembling hands. Right before he leaves, he kisses Charlie on the forehead, just as he had _Amaya_ in this very field, fifty years ago.

Just as her human host did half a century ago, Charlie watches the man leave. No tears shed this time, but _Amaya_ misses him, all the same.

Charlie feels the bottle of magic radiating from her pocket, strong, in continuous waves, and she has never felt so pleased in her life. Her host would berate her for being heartless, no doubt, but perhaps, she would listen to her hosts’ instincts more often. They could be useful, as much as she loathed to admit it.

Until next time, and she programs her location with _Amaya’s_ muscle memory. She has only great distaste for such devices of beeping metal, but this piece of beeping metal has only proven to be useful.

The gateway to the Byzantine Empire appears; the streets bustling in glorius Latin and the masses unchanged from 79 AD. Gold decorates the sky, in the gaudy decorations of Kings (the human kind) and the constant that was the suffering and the mistreatment of the poor.

She remembers Pompeii, and the fight to escape days before the eruption had taken place. The amateur magician and Giovanni Zatara, the writing on the wall the humans ignored, because Pride was their downfall, a constant to examining the weaknesses of any group of people that would come and go.

She can’t help but grin as the gateway closes behind her. All the misadventures she would have, and all the people she would con, and the last benefit? The tortuous devices humans referred to as technology wouldn’t exist, not for another almost two millennia.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at riphunter.


End file.
